Fall 2022 Apprenticeship Project

As we kick off this year’s fall Apprenticeship program, we wanted to share a sneak peek at the projects Apprentices will be making at Beam. Beam’s Apprenticeship is a youth training program where they learn leadership skills and how to make collaborative projects. Running in both the fall and spring, the Apprenticeship centers around a thematic project. Over the last few weeks, Beam Project Designer, Rose, and Program Managers, Jenny and Breanna, have been prototyping projects related to this fall’s theme, The Shapes We Make.  

Inspired by the 2022-2023 Beam Project NYC, Baobab: The Tree of Life, the Apprenticeship project explores notions of building unity through woodworking, mosaics, circuitry, and a communal project activation. For the first part of the project, Apprentices will create their own wooden stool with a mosaic top, which they can later gift to someone or keep for themselves. Apprentices will have the creative freedom to choose the design for the top of their stool and will have different types of tiles to choose from to create that design. After completing the first part of the project, youth will apply their new woodworking, design, and mosaic skills to build a larger bench as a group. 

Before creating the bench, youth will create surveys to get to know each other more, including questions specifically about what they would like to learn more about their peers. After surveying the group, Apprentices will create data visualizations using the answers they receive, and this data visualization will serve as the design for the top of their bench. After the bench is complete,  Apprentices will use the stools and benches gathered around tables for a communal potluck and celebration of their work and the skills they learned.

We’ll be sharing more about youth projects and the Apprenticeship program as it progresses, so be sure to check back here, our newsletter, or our social media for updates!